“I play with lights and spaces”. If one had to summarize in a few words the essence of Capas, the first solo exhibition of photographer Miguel Fonta (Madrid, 1979), it could be done with that phrase that the artist himself has in his Instagram biography. But if one were to delve a little deeper, one immediately comes to the conclusion that those two elements are the tools that serve him to portray something more than a simple construction.
In an exercise that could be reminiscent of what we have seen in other artistic expressions such as Emotional Architecture 1959 by León Siminiani -a short film from which I have borrowed the title for this article-, the exhibition invites us to think of architecture as something much more than a mere structure, “as a container of memories and emotions”.
It makes clear something that is obvious but that, like so many other things that are, we often overlook: a building is never just a building, and for everyone it has a different meaning. It’s where your childhood best friend lived or your grandparents’ house, the doorway in front of which you had your first kiss or even a historical document from the Civil War.
In the photographs of the exhibition -among which you can also find snapshots of buildings beyond Madrid- it is clear, as the gallery that hosts it states, that “Each facade, corner and window contains experiences, traces of the passage of time and a visual record of what once was“.
Until when can it be visited?
The exhibition opened its doors last December 28 and will remain at flora&fauno (Divino Pastor Street, 24) until Saturday, January 18. The gallery is open to the public on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from 5 pm to 8 pm and Saturdays from 11 am to 2 pm.